tech&fest 2026 : Le Plateau TV - Jean-Pascal Tricoire (Président SCHNEIDER Electric)

Good morning. Local player as well, because you just finished your speech and you talked about Grenoble. Hm.

Well, Grenoble is the heart of Schneider Electric in France. It's our largest R&D centers, factories that are references worldwide. Moreover, it's the place where I started my career at Schneider for many years, so I have a very special attachment to Grenoble, that's why I come often.

It's a very beautiful project, a project that was created a long time ago, so it's a tradition we've maintained through successive general managements throughout history. It consists of recognizing that we are in professions that are changing enormously, energy professions that are moving towards complete electrification, based on renewable, decentralized, and digitalization everywhere. So everything becomes digital, everything becomes automated by artificial intelligence software. And to implement this in smart homes, smart buildings, Industry 4.0, in smart cities, we need professionals to do it, and a company like ours can work with academia to design, create, and develop these curricula. So for years, we have been bringing young people from general knowledge to specialized and cutting-edge knowledge in the field of new energy technologies. And it's about imagining tomorrow ultimately. It's more than imagining, it's preparing tomorrow and preparing people. Some will work at Schneider, many will work at Schneider's partners, some will create their own company, and throughout this journey we will accompany them during their career and their path.

Well, there is a first subject which is a French and European industrial subject: do we choose sovereignty? Choosing sovereignty is a choice of competitiveness. To be sovereign, you must be competitive in all elements of the value chain. We must also recognize that it is probably impossible to be completely sovereign. So if we lack certain technology elements, we must conclude solid agreements with friendly countries and companies. But the opportunity we have in Europe in terms of sovereignty is to become much more sovereign in energy. There is a global phenomenon happening today: the electric revolution, digital and connected. That is, everything becomes smart and everything becomes electric, therefore decarbonized, greener. But today we must unfortunately note that Europe has been at a standstill in this evolution over the past 40 years, while the world is electrifying at an accelerated pace. Vehicles are becoming electric, buildings are heated or cooled with heat pumps, and electricity is the basis of all new technologies: data centers, artificial intelligence, semiconductors. Essentially, it's a real transition from a world that is currently 20% electric to one that will be 50% electric in 20-25 years. The huge opportunity is that France has been an electric country before others, based on nuclear power, complemented today by renewables, supported by major electricity professionals like EDF. We have an electric sector that is a world leader. So if we envision a future where France goes from about 25-28% electric to 50% electric, that reduces our fuel imports, money we can reinvest in the future economy, and it also goes towards decarbonization. So that's the whole challenge that Schneider supports with this technology.